American Democracy Project seeks to solve problems within our local community and on campus, and during 2011 and on into this year, we the students of American Democracy Project at Middle Tennessee State University identified two major problems affecting MTSU that we wanted to try to begin to tackle on our campus.

One problem has been a lack of awareness about campus recycling. We saw the recycling bins often getting underused, while at the same time the trash bins seemed to pile up and overflow! So we brainstormed, talked to a lot of facilities people on campus and to other campus organizations, and decided on a few tactics we wanted to undertake toward improving the current situation.

The new student orientation program that MTSU hosts every spring and summer for incoming freshmen and transfer students is called CUSTOMS on our campus, during which new students are given tours of campus and are treated to presentations about every aspect of how the campus operates. Of course the students leave orientation loaded with brochures and handouts about organizations, programs, and student services. ADP decided to create a brochure to go in the CUSTOMS packets that will be given to all new students this coming summer that will inform them about MTSU’s recycling services. We wanted to stress to the new students the importance of recycling; to work toward building a healthier campus culture by starting early with our incoming students; and also to simply provide new students with basic, introductory recycling information that they all need to know. We wanted to supply answers to straightforward questions. Do all the dorms have bins? Does every floor? Does every academic hall and classroom? How often are the bins collected? Where is the main campus recycling center? Where are hazardous waste and electronic equipment recycled? What does Facilities Services collect on campus, v. what does each individual student need to transport personally to the larger campus recycling center? Questions like that.

We hope our new brochure will be a good addition to help students start off on the right foot here. We were not provided that sort of information when we arrived at MTSU, and we think we should have been. So we’re handling it ourselves because it’s something we care about.

The other problem we are taking on is a serious attempt to increase the student voting base at MTSU in preparation for the 2012 presidential election. Due to the lack of heavy student participation in the fall 2010 elections, during which election cycle Tennessee selected our current governor, we were discouraged by the general apathy toward voting by many of our students. We have read the national data on this issue, as have you, about poor voter turnout among our age group, but we are interpreting some of the disengagement on our campus, and maybe much of it, in part to the lack of prepared registration: to students generally being uninformed aboutregistration. We hope that receiving information about how to register will increase the numbers of students getting registered, to be ready to vote November 6th!

We are using a multi-pronged approach in dealing with this issue in the months ahead. Just one of our approaches is an attempt at tackling the problem in a similar way in which we are dealing with recycling: we have decided to also include an informational flyer in the CUSTOMS packets this summer about voter registration. We compiled a list of the recurring questions that were asked of us throughout the past year when we had voter registration tables set up on campus. We set out to answer those questions in the best, most efficient ways we can, writing down our tips in simple responses for our freshmen, most of whom will be first time voters this coming fall. We want to show them that registering to vote is easy. We want them to be sure they know that registration is the required first step in being able to participate in the election to put forth their voice in the political arena. We want to help them get registered – and then get to the polls.

Information is power. We respect our fellow students and presume they genuinely want to do the right thing. They just need to be encouraged. We think information about a subject leads to action. Ideally we would love for everyone on campus to participate in voting this fall. We know the sheer act of flipping the levers in the voting booth can be life changing. Voting makes a citizen of even the very cynical. If we can raise the voter participation numbers among our campus population by the slightest percentage come fall 2012, we’ll have accomplished a lot. But even if we’re able to facilitate just one more MTSU student becoming a participatory citizen, we’ll feel good about our efforts and know that our goal has been accomplished! We’re working on it, and we hope we’re modeling civic agency and civic action in the process.

*****

Victoria Womack

Victoria Womack is a soldier in the Tennessee National Guard and a full time student at Middle Tennessee State University. She is majoring in Digital Animation and hopes to one day start her own company. She became involved in civic engagement through her experiences in the military as well as her involvement with the American Democracy Project. She hopes to promote the importance of voting as well as staying actively involved with government issues.

The American Democracy Project is proud to announce a partnership with the Earth Day Network’s MobilizeU project. MobilizeU is a month-long effort to engage campus communities around four weeks of meaningful environmental efforts, from March 29-April 29, 2012. The Earth Day Network’s goals of scaling-up and sustaining longer-term environmental initiatives is in keeping with ADP’s efforts to make civic learning and engagement more central to our campus missions and work: rather than merely celebrating Earth Day, we can engage our campuses and communities in efforts to make our communities more healthy and sustainable on and before Earth Day, and every day.

I hope you’ll join us!

Jen Domagal-Goldman, National Manager, American Democracy Project

By Carra Cheslin, Earth Day University Campaign Coordinator, Earth Day Network

College and university students have consistently been at the forefront of the environmental movement, rallying and taking a stand for our planet. 2012 will be a critical year for the environment; as our climate and natural environment are rapidly changing, a host of major national elections occur, and the prominent Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable Development takes the world stage. Thus the time is now for universities to again lead the way in creating environmental change.

As part of Earth Day Network’s global effort to Mobilize The Earth™, Earth Day University is activating college students to join the MobilizeU movement and enable their campus environmental initiatives to have a greater impact than ever before.

MobilizeU is an international competition between colleges and universities that calls upon students to mobilize their campus communities around four weeks of environmental activism surrounding Earth Day 2012 (March 29 – April 29). Over the month-long competition, students will organize activities such as campus clean-ups, new voter registration drives and Earth Day events, as well as amplify environmental initiatives they are already working on at their schools.

Each of these activities will be broken down into a calculable number of “acts of green” – actions that either educate someone about the environment or reduce an individual’s carbon footprint. During each week of the competition, School Coordinators from each participating university will report the number of acts of green they generated and post a creative photo or video documenting their efforts to the MobilizeU Facebook hub. A central objective of MobilizeU is to build an international movement of student environmental activists. Thus, student Regional Coordinators will be working to initiate an exchange of ideas as well as a sense of community between students across the world.

Every act of green generated during MobilizeU will contribute to Earth Day Network’s global A Billion Acts of Green® initiative which will be presented to world leaders at the Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable Development this June. Thus, MobilizeU provides a platform for college students to amplify their environmental initiatives on an international level have a significant influence on global environmental change.

“Just left Cal U in Pennsylvania. Lots of good discussion on the news of the day, public service and the need for more civility in politics,” tweeted Donna Brazile after a visit to ADP chapter California University of Pennsylvania in mid-April. Brazile, an author, syndicated columnist and TV political commentator, headlined a Cal U conference focused on environmental responsibility and civic engagement.

A veteran Democratic political strategist and a native of New Orleans, Brazile is passionate about two issues: encouraging young people to participate in the political process and promoting the economic and environmental recovery of her storm-ravaged hometown. She effectively conveyed this passion to the faculty members and students who heard her speak.

Her keynote address at the conference, Civic Responsibility: People, Policy and Politics, took place on April 12th.

Brazile held a book signing after her talk. Her best-selling memoir is Cooking with Grease: Stirring the Pots in American Politics.

Collins lecture was titled “Green Chemistry: On the Responsibility of Chemists to Advance Science with Human Health and the Environment Clearly in Mind.”

Rounding out the conference were the following panel discussions:

A panel of Cal U professors addressing “Civic Responsibility: Where Is the Leadership?”

A panel led by David Marks, energy consultant to Allegheny County Council, examining “Environmental Challenges: Louisiana and Pennsylvania.”

The conference was organized by Cal U’s chapter of the American Democracy Project, a multi-campus initiative focused on higher education’s role in preparing the next generation of informed, engaged citizens. Sponsors for the panel discussions included the Linda and Harry Serene Leadership Institute and the Leadership Studies program at Cal U.

I am pleased to see Cal U take a day to focus on the environment. Many young people cite the environment as a key area of political concern. Hosting an event like this conference is an excellent way to activate student passion and turn this passion into action that builds civic skills.

The cutting edge of carbon reduction in colleges and universities is behavior change and community engagement.

David Gershon, one of the world’s foremost experts on behavior change and community engagement will share proven strategies and tools from his three decades of research to help you engage staff, students, and community members in this live, streamed webcast.

Gershon is the author of eleven books, including the best-seller Low Carbon Diet: A 30 Day Program to Lose 5,000 Pounds, and Social Change 2.0: A Blueprint for Reinventing Our World (winner of four book awards).

The program moderator is Andrew Revkin, renowned former environmental reporter for The New York Times, who has now joined the staff of Pace Academy (Pace University) for Applied Environmental Studies as Senior Fellow for Environmental Understanding.

Additional program discussants from higher education will add to the dynamic discussion!

Discussion points include:

Social change design principles and how to apply them to your own campus sustainability initiatives